Object intrusion on to railway tracks at train station platforms is a major safety concern for governments, the railway and general transportation industries, communities, and common citizens. Many accidents happen around the world each year and many lives are lost in these accidents. Governments, local communities, and railway companies spend millions of dollars each year trying to improve safety at train station platforms, yet to the inventor's knowledge no solution to this need so far is regarded highly enough that it is widely accepted.
Methods such as laser beam scanning, ultrasonic wave reflection, video cameras, etc. have been used for detecting objects at railway track zones. However, none of these provide effective solutions. For example, a common shortcoming for all of these is that the sensitivity and accuracy are greatly reduced during bad weather conditions. In addition, effective video techniques require human observation at all times.
In this invention, the inventor proposes to use sensors (e.g., mechanical/electrical strain gauges, pressure gages, fiber optic fiber Bragg gratings, fiber optic interferometers, etc.) to detect objects that are at a railway track zone. With this approach, the presence of such an object triggers a warning signal that both train station authorities and the engineer of an approaching train can receive visually or via a telecommunications channel at a safe distance, and take appropriate action if the object is not out of the crossing within a safe period of time.